TSA News

Have a drink? The TSA wants some of that

Every time you think the TSA can’t come up with anything more stupid or abusive, they prove you wrong.

The latest — well, not the latest, actually, just finally picked up by the mainstream media — is that TSA agents, while randomly roaming around at the gate, well past the checkpoint, are not only singling out passengers for yet another grope or a paw through the bags, but also “testing” the beverages they’re drinking.

I know — I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you can’t make this stuff up.

Yes, dear reader, that water or coffee or soft drink in your cup, the one you bought after you passed through the checkpoint, in the so-called sterile area? That could contain a bomb! And you didn’t even know it!

Thank heavens the TSA is here to save the day. As they wave their little Magic Bomb-Detecting Stick over your beverage, be sure to smile and thank them. After all, they’re Keeping You Safe.

It’s telling that this article from KJCT in Colorado has elicited, as of this writing, over 1,800 comments, most of them assailing the TSA for the idiocy of this policy, and many of them relating readers’ stories of their own about having their drinks “tested.” Yet compare that to the response when a story is published of people getting assaulted by the TSA. The outrage exhibited over the latter pales in comparison to that over the former.

*2015 UPDATE: Still no word from TSA on public comments*

The public comment period on the TSA's electronic strip-search scanners and "pat-downs" closed on June 25, 2013. That public comment period had been ordered by the courts, an order the TSA ignored for almost two years before it finally complied. The agency must issue a report on the many thousands (or more?) of comments it received. Yet here it is 2015 and still no report. If it ever complies with the requirement to issue that report, TSA News will let you know.

TSA News is an independent blog that covers the Transportation Security Administration. We are not affiliated with the TSA. Please send us an email with your news tips and suggestions.